Hitting the Links

For some reason, I've found that posting to this blog is like pulling teeth for me this week. Is it because the weather is unquestionably warm and beautiful, finally? Is it becasue of various other distractions--some larger and some trivial--I've been encountering lately? Nothing in and of itself seems large enough to offer an explanation, but maybe it's just a combination of everything adding up at once. Whatever the cause, I'm just not able to focus on this for the time being.

Be that as it may, I've made a promise that I'll get at least one post up for every calendar day, so here's an entry for Thursday. There have been a couple of stories that have gotten my attention lately, and quite frankly, I can't really understand why we're hearing about anything else.

On Sunday, Glenn Greenwald noted a Boston Globe opinion piece about the Prez's consistent positioning of himself above the law:

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, "whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to "execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.

Greenwald adds his own insight, as well, so be sure to click on both links.

Although it's been suggested before, there's new attention being focused on what exactly Valerie Plame (or, as Stephen Colbert would correct, "Joseph Wilson's wife") was working on at the CIA when her cover was blown. Raw Story had this story back in February, but that site noticed this week that David Shuster reported the same information to Chris Matthews on Hardball:

Intelligence sources say Valerie Wilson was part of an operation three years ago tracking the proliferation of nuclear weapons material into Iran. And the sources allege that when Mrs. Wilson's cover was blown, the administration's ability to track Iran's nuclear ambitions was damaged as well.

Crooks and Liars has the video. After the report, New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg called for the CIA to provide a public assessment of the damage done when Valerie Plame's cover was blown and whatever assignment she was working on was compromised. Maybe it's just me, since I haven't seen this covered in the mainstream press (of course, I could just have been distracted), but doesn't it seem that it might be kind of handy just about now to be able to draw on some good intelligence about the Iranian nuclear program?